Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Marriage Based on Honesty
By Monty Ashley | Season 8 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.20.2012
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Joe used to be a speaker at corporate events, exhorting people to be sharks and devour their enemies. But then he got beat up in a football argument and became a sensitive guy, telling men to be nicer to their wives. This is all background to when he collapses on stage and goes through a series of diagnoses including celiac, multiple sclerosis, and low testosterone. He eventually gets cured and decides to forego the testosterone shots because he doesn't want to turn back into a big manly jerk.
House, however, is distracted by the unexpected reappearance of Dominika, his Ukrainian wife. They have to pretend to be a happily married couple so she can get her green card, but that would involve defrauding the federal government. And House is still on parole! At least this time, the threat of prison kind of makes sense. They put on a pretty good show, but Wilson screws up his part of it and they get caught. In the end, Dominika is barely convincing enough to convince the Immigration guy to give them six more months to pretend to be married. So she moves back in with House.
Finally, House is making his team squabble over who gets to be team leader. They all know he's doing it just to cause trouble, but they can't keep themselves from fighting. Except for Taub, who's playing the long con.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Okay, so. House. We start with a guy who looks like Mister Rogers doing a Marriage Counseling act from a stage. He's talking about Phil and Diane, who is a couple in the audience. He runs through some catchphrases and I get impatient waiting for him to collapse. Or maybe someone in the audience could explode. He goes to get a drink of water, so I figure he's probable tonight's patient. As a result, I shall take the opportunity to learn his name. According to the set behind him, this show is "Joe Something's Marriage Rescue." The "Something" is in a handwriting font that I find impenetrable. It starts with an R, but everything after that is a squiggle. Oh no! What if I'm having a stroke? What if tonight's patient is me? What a twist! No, wait. Joe's having trouble with his catchphrases. Eventually he collapses off the stage. A woman runs up to him and a guy with a cellphone calls for an ambulance. And we're off!
Taub brings coffee for the team, which is in the external office. Chase's limp is almost gone. House interrupts with Joe's background: he's 38 years old. Chase thinks he's crazy because he tells men to act more like women. House thinks it's impossible to change the way men act and insists on fist-bumps from Taub and Chase. Park and Adams talk about relationships. Taub proposes a pulmonary embolism and wants to do a pulmonary angiogram. Adams has a less invasive idea. House is disappointed that everyone agrees, so he announces that he wants to hire a team leader. Just then, a woman walks past. It's Dominika, House's Ukrainian wife!
She's here to tell House that there are Green Card interviews coming. House rushes through some basics to make sure their stories are straight. She asks, in adorably broken English, "Can it be that genius doctor is afraid to take on silly government apparatchik?" Oh, man, whatever happened to using "apparatchik" in English? Was that just a Cold War thing? We have to bring that back now. Anyway, the scene ends without a resolution on this issue.
Joe is getting hooked up to tubes and stuff while the team asks about his background. He says that he got a broken wrist when three morons beat him up outside a sports bar in Milwaukee, which is what made him realize that men should stop being so macho. And that's when he switched from Corporate Speaking to Marriage-Counseling Speaking. The woman from the opening is there, and she turns out to be Marlene, his wife. Joe says she helped him change his career and his diet. Taub would like more information on the diet part.